Donate to I Ching Music

I Ching Music Logo
On the web since 1996

RECORDINGS

COMPOSITIONS

BOOKS

MUTES

About R. Burdick

for Horn students


Recordings:

AppleMUSIC
Apple Music

Band Camp BandCamp

Deezer

ReverbNation Reverb Nation

Spotify

Tidal

Youtube Artist


Sheet Music:

Program notesVideo Hear & Buy CD

The Cd's of Richard O. Burdick                  1 star rating               Follow on Twitter

I Ching Music logoCD9

SOLD OUT
and this will not be reprinted.

Watch for a new recording maybe in 2023

Recorded summers of 2003 and 2004

DaupratLouis-François Dauprat
(1781-1868)

Duos for Natural Horns, Op. 13

CD8CD TourCD10

Volume 1

Richard Burdick, cor alto & Beverly Wilcox, cor basse

Horn duos were once a popular form of music. Professional duetists toured the capitals of Europe, and dozens of books of horn duos were written. Some consisted mainly of the rustic calls of the hunt, but others were clearly intended as art music. One of the best composers of these was Louis-François Dauprat, who began his musical career in the armies of Napoleon, later studied composition with Anton Reicha, and served as a professor for a quarter century at the Paris Conservatoire National. His Opus 13 duos were published sometime between 1818 and 1824.

The natural horn, like the valve horn, uses the harmonic series to produce its notes. A tube of a given length will amplify vibrations at frequencies that are multiples of the frequency of the “fundamental” note. These so-called “open” notes are shown below. Nineteenth-century concert reviewers and composers frequently complained about the intonation of the four marked notes.

harmonic series

     The valves of the modern horn make it possible to fill in the missing notes of the scale.  When the hornist depresses a valve, more tubing is added to the length of the horn, creating a new series of open notes. With three valves, every note of the chromatic scale can be played as an open note. The natural horn, however, fills in the missing notes with a series of rather obscure tricks. First, crooks (detachable loops of tubing between the mouthpiece and the body of the horn) can be used to set the length of the tube to different fundamentals for different keys, thus providing as many open notes possible. Second, the composer can stick to the upper half of the harmonic series, where there are fewer missing notes.

     Third, the hornist can raise or lower the open notes by inserting the right hand into the bell of the instrument. Inserting the hand all the way lowers the high notes by a half step, and the low notes by a whole step. Inserting the hand part way into the bell also lowers the notes, but not as much. The hornist, like a slide trombonist, must possess a good ear, as the degree of insertion varies depending on the note, its harmonic function, and the dynamic level. Taking the hand out of the bell raises the notes slightly. The sound of the horn becomes more muffled as the hand goes further into the bell, and these notes become edgy or brassy when played forte. 

     Fourth, the hornist can “bend” the lowest open notes downwards by deliberately buzzing the lips at a frequency below the harmonic, and can fully stop the bell and overblow these lowest notes to produce an unstable (and extremely ugly!) note a half step higher. The “ugly duckling” note can be clearly heard near the end of II:4 (2nd Duo, 4th Movement) at the fermata, and it is immediately followed by four of the “bent” notes in the extreme low register.

     Dauprat’s intimate knowledge of hand horn techniques makes this opus a compositional tour de force. Not only does he use all twelve notes of the chromatic scale in nearly every piece, he also pioneers the use of key signatures of up to four sharps and four flats for an instrument which was generally restricted C major. His stated purpose in writing these duos was to write in “all the major and minor scales practicable on a single crook.” His ideas of what was “practicable” went far beyond the usual practice of his time, and his goal was at least as much aesthetic as technical. He exploited the positioning of stopped notes to produce distinct moods and tone qualities for each key, much as J.S. Bach did in the Well-Tempered Clavier. For the natural horn, C major and the sharp keys are cheerful and brilliant because they contain many open notes.  The sharped notes are often leading tones, so the hand position is more open than would otherwise be the case.

     Dauprat constructs several lively melodies almost entirely of open notes, for example the C major openings of I:1, I:3, I:4, and the Trio of II:2. The stopped notes are often placed on weak beats or used as passing tones, so that the open notes accentuate the meter. These same techniques work even better in G major (I:4, measures 12-60), since F-naturals require full stopping but F-sharps are half-stopped in the lower octave and open in the upper octave. Dauprat uses key signatures of two sharps in IV:2 and three sharps in parts of I:2 and IV:1.

     The flat keys (C minor and Eb major in the second duo) sound calm or even somber. One must close the flatted notes slightly more than normal to make them lead downwards to resolution. The key of A minor, although it contains no more stopped notes than C major, takes on a different character because the stopped notes include the tonic (half-stopped) and its upper and lower neighbors. This effect can be heard clearly in the lovely Siciliana dance movement (I:2). The stopped notes sound veiled and mysterious, rather than deficient.  This sound was so highly regarded that the Conservatoire National did not abolish its natural horn curriculum until 1903!

     Dauprat pushes the natural horn to its limits in remote keys. His audiences must have been truly startled to hear the rapid modulations in the miniature development section of I:4 (E minor to A minor to D minor to F major), and a retransition constructed almost entirely of  chromatic scales. The path of IV:4 is even more adventurous, with an abrupt modulation from E minor to F major. And V:3 (to be recorded next year) is in the unlikely key of F minor.

              Richard plays a horn made by Marcel-Auguste Raoux in the 1840s, and Beverly plays a Finke copy of a 1830s Belgian horn, both modified by Lowell Greer. We tuned to A=430 and used mean-tone temperament, referring frequently to a Peterson AutoStrobe 490 tuner for guidance.

  Duo No. 1 in C major   
1 Allegro moderato  2:34
2 Siciliana:  Andante 4:15
3 Minuetto:  Allegro 2:28
4 Finale:  Allegro        4:34
  Duo No. 2 in C minor  
5 Maestoso poco agitato 5:10
6 Minuetto: Allegro 3:46
7 Adagio 4:47
8 Finale:  Allegro poco vivace 3:47
  Duo No. 4 in A minor  
9   Allegro moderato 5:05
10 Adagio       4:25
11 Minuetto:  Allegro moderato       3:55 
12 Rondo Finale:  Allegro non troppo 5:20

Total time 50:20

 

Horn Call review from October 2005 by John Dressler

Dauprat Duos for Natural Horns, opus 13 vol. 1. Richard Burdick and Beverly Wilcox, hornists. Self-produced disc. Timing: 49:59. Recorded summers of 2003 and 2004. Contents:      Louis Dauprat: Duo No. 1, C Major; Duo No. 2, C Minor; Duo No. 4, A Minor. If you've encountered any of the solo works or the complete method book of Dauprat, you will understand the impression he made upon the early-to-mid-l9th century "French" hornist. It is one thing to play his pieces on the mod­em valved horn, but to perform them on the natural horn is another situation altogether. Here three of his duos are per­formed on valveless instruments. Burdick's is an Austro ­Bohemian horn made in the 1840s by an unknown maker; Wilcox plays a Finke copy of an 1830s Belgian horn. Both instruments were modified by Lowell Greer and the duo per­forms at A=430, in mean-tone temperament.

Educationally speaking, this disc reveals what the French players were probably dealing with shortly after Beethoven's death. The two artists here have a terrific feeling of unity of intonation, articulation, phrasing, and color, especially on the closed notes. While the spectrum of dynamics is not particu­larly wide, the rapid changes between open and closed horn and the many sets of trills is indicative of their command of these instruments. Their understanding of the original-instru­ment phenomenon is immediately realized by the listener. They've provided us with an intimate and fresh presentation of these works.

Mr. Burdick is currently principal horn of the Regina (Saskatchewan) Symphony; Ms. Wilcox is a former member of the Syracuse (New York) Symphony and is currently a graduate student at the University of California, Davis. J.D.

Burdick's CD9 barcode

Program Notes:

ask

back to the top

I Ching Music's divider @ Richard Burdick 2020

Tracks List:

ask

back to the top

I Ching Music's divider @ Richard Burdick 2020

Bar codes:

ask

back to the top

Search I Ching Music:
Current ThinkSpotVBlog
all ThinkSpotsI Ching Music's divider @ Richard Burdick 2020

CD87 - RoB's Chamber Music            volume two

CD86 - 19th Century Horn music by Lütgen & Wünderer

CD85 - Otto Nicolai Duets            on Natural horn

CD84 - Artot Quartet No. 1

CD83 - Horn Quartets by Artot

CD82 - Horn Trios by Artot

CD81 - 64 String Quartets

CD80 - 64 Horn Quartets

CD79 - 18th Century Horn

CD78 - Beethoven & Reicha

CD77 - Yin-Yang Beauty No. 2

CD76 - Found These: Three

CD75 - RoB's Chamber Music            volume one

CD74 - Following Glacier

CD73 - Handsome horn solos
           volume two

CD72 - Gumpert Horn Quatets               volume four

CD71 - Gumpert
           Horn Quartets vol. 3

CD70 - Gumpert
           Horn Quartets vol. 2

CD69 - Gumpert
           Horn Quartets vol. 1

CD68 Handsome horn solos
           volume one

CD67 - Glacier Suites etc.

CD66 - A Lake
             of Violet Flames Op. 310

CD65 - More natural horn music

CD64 - 64 horn solos (icsV5),                  Op. 293

CD63 - 64 horn duets (icsV5),                  Op. 292

CD62 - The Mindset Nonet,      
             Op. 242

CD61 - Vortex Breathing
      & I Ching Chants, Op. 244

CD60 - Wilder Graas Presser

CD59 - A Walk with Giants
                 & Motor 1 2 4 8 7 5

CD58 - Music We Publish

CD57 - Piano works: Wave,              Relentless & more   

CD56 - Particles

CD55 - Duets

CD54 - The 270's

CD53 - Burdick & Harbison                        Quartets

CD52- Found These Too  

CD51- Microtonal
             I Ching Cycles   

CD50 - I Ching Elements

CD49 - Brass Music, Op. 9, 10,               45, 268, 269 &150b

CD48 - Giovanni Gastoldi

CD47 - I Ching Rhythms,Op. 209

CD46 - A Rainbow of
              I Ching triads

CD45 - North American
              Horn Music

CD44 - Opening the Sphinx

CD43 - Music of Silvio Coscia

CD42 - I Sound My Horn

CD41 - American Horn Music                     vol. 2

CD40 - Retrospective II-                          The horn Quartets

CD39 - Bach
             by Popular Demand

CD38 - Matthew Locke
        Broken &  Flatte Consorts

CD37 - Microtonal music of
             Richard Burdick

CD36 - Classical Natural Horn
          Duvernoy & Schneider

CD35 - Twenty-Two Trios for                  Horns, Op. 156

CD34 - Natural Horn Music                        FOUND

CD33 - More than 64 Quartets for horns based on the I Ching

CD32 - American Horn Music
             of the 40's & 50's

CD31 - Grand Music of J. F.                   Gallay,   vol. 2

CD30 - Grand Music of J. F.                   Gallay,  vol. 1

CD29 - Astral Waves
            & Phosphor

CD28 - WAVES AND PARTICLES, opus 159 PART ONE - Waves

CD27a - Castelnuovo Tedesco                 horn quartet

CD27 - Anton Reicha Trios
            Op. 82 & 93 complete

CD26 - Accuracy Studies For the         French horn student

CD25a - Bach Cantata
                BWV 132 No. 1

CD25 - Nice Notes

CD24 - Duets, opus 132 complete in the "one takes"

CD23 - More than 64 solos for                Horn, Op. 139

CD22 – Naderman’s Music
              for Horn and Harp

CD21 - Beyond Favorites

CD20 - Classical Gas

CD19a - Dauprat's trios
                Op. 26

CD19 -  Dauprat's Grand Music

CD18 - Louis-Francois Dauprat
              Duos for Horns,
                        Opus 13 vol. 2

CD17 - Favorites - Barber, Grieg, Bach BWV 82 & 225

CD16 - Howlers Revised 2006 Dauprat  Duets, Op. 14, Mozart

CD15 - J. S. Bach's Easter                        Oratorio, BWV 249

CD14 - Dauprat’s Op. 8

CD13 - 64 Duets, Op. 132                        part two #17-34

CD12 - Reveré by V. Herbert

CD11 - 64 Duets, Op. 132                         part one #1-16

CD10 - The Planets for
              solo horn, opus 19

CD 9 - Louis-Francois Dauprat
            Duos for Horns, Op. 13

CD 8 - Portal Solo Multi-phonic French horn In An Environment of drones & overtones.

CD 7 - INFINITY ONE

CD 6 - "Richard Burdick with tape"

CD 5 - "Let Me Out

CD 4 - 4.5 INCH SINGLE Aaron Blumenfeld’s Horn Sonata

CD 3  - H o w l e r s
          Louis-François Dauprat’s
         20 Duos for Natural 

CD 2 - I Ching Arpeggios

CD 1 - Rebel with a Horn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOTTOM OF THE RIGHT COLUMN